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Topic: School Board Meeting (Read 3634 times)

The individuals who are monitoring the doors are retired teachers or substitute aides until they put it up for bid. This, I believe will be temporary until the board seeks other alternatives such as buzzards or key card passes. These are individuals who do not have the training nor the resources to stop someone from forcefully entering the school. These people are putting themselves in direct line of potential harm. ..................

On The Run has made a couple of good points regarding the qualifications of the door monitors: they may have no training and they have no resources to stop someone.

Just think about what the school is doing. On one hand, they don't let anyone teach without a certificate; on the other hand they are going to hire unskilled, unarmed aides to thwart an assault by a crazed armed killer?

Bring back the second resource officer versus this door monitor plan. Let the officers park their patrol cars at one location and travel to other locations in civilian cars to at least double their perceived presence.

I think that as long as someone is willing to give their own life to take the life of someone else, our school and kids will be vulnerable. Should we attempt to improve security, absolutely; but I don't think we will make a dent in this effort with the proposed door monitors.

Congrats to Ron Koch and Dee Ellsworth on their swearing-in as new Bedford Public School Board of Education members. Nice article in today's Toledo Blade. A link to the newspaper article is posted on the www.bedfordyes.com web site on the following page:

We get in our car without any thought as to whether we will make it back home or not. We let friends take our kids to activities without blinking an eye. We go to the mall without any thought of what could happen. We cant control what others do but we can control how we act/react to situations. In one of my other posts, you cannot let fear dictate how you live or no one would be leaving their house.

I agree with BW that the school district needs to work with our local community health department in acknowledging those who are troubled. The teachers, principals and school social workers know who these kids are. They cannot put this information in their student file but they know what issues these students are dealing with and as they move onto the Jr. high and High school, the proper individuals are informed.

But remember, the shooter had not been a student at Sandy Hook for over 13 years. You could have a disgruntled significant other coming into the building and take it out on anyone they can. In this day of age, anyone can snap as seen in the last two months how many domestic shootings have taken place.I also agree that schools should not look like prisons. The only way an intruder would not be able to get in a school is if prison bars are placed on every door and window, looking like a prison, or replace every pane of glass with shatterproof glass.

If the district does put in a buzzer at every entrance, you would need to hire another office worker at every school just to handle the traffic of answering the intercom and letting them in. You have no idea who you are letting in if you cannot see them. Another idea was having a key card type entrance. My kid is constantly misplacing his student id. What happens if a student id gets in the wrong hands? How many kids would report their card missing in order to deactivate that card? My guess, not a whole lot.

I am not keen on letting just any teacher having a gun in school, actually, having guns in schools by any civilian scares me. I know of some teachers who really should not have a gun in their possession . If the district decides to go that way, I would be more fearful of my kids going into a class knowing that the teacher has a gun and possibly it getting in the wrong hands or the teacher going off. Teachers are human beings too, with the same stresses that everyone else has, sometimes more because of the kids they have to deal with.So what is the answer, like in another post by BW, training by school officials, officers, and students on how to react to situations. Again, the odds of you getting into a car accident Is greater than someone breaking into the school and start shooting.

I dont think there is a clear cut answer to 100% securing the schools.

A Texas man is facing third-degree felony charges of making a terroristic threat after he allegedly told elementary school staffers he brought a gun to the building, NBCDFW.com reported.

Officials say Ronald Miller was unarmed Wednesday when he told a school greeter outside Celina Elementary School that he had a gun, according to NBCDFW.com. The town of Celina is just north of Dallas.

The greeter froze in panic when Miller said he was a gunman and his target was inside, Celina Independent School District Superintendent Donny O'Dell told NBCDFW.com. Miller was then able to walk into the school and entered the office.

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"He told them that he is a shooter and 'you're dead, and you're dead,'" O'Dell told NBCDFW.com. Never showing a weapon, Miller then reportedly revealed his stunt was a test of school safety and he wanted to talk to the principal.

School staffers knew Miller, who was a father of a student, and police were not called until he left the school, The Dallas Morning News reported. He was arrested Wednesday evening and is being held in lieu of $75,000 bail, the newspaper added.

School security and gun control have been hotly debated since the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., claimed the lives of 20 children and six adult staffers.

In a letter to parents dated Thursday, O'Dell said Wednesday's test was done "in a rogue manner."

"We have always had a security plan in place that involved our police officials," O'Dell wrote. "However, because of recent events we have ramped-up our security efforts on all campuses."

O'Dell did not respond to NBC News' phone and email requests for comment Friday. Representatives of the Celina PTA board did not respond to email requests for comment Friday.

David Siano, a parent at the school, told NBCDFW.com that the incident shows that "we are not prepared."

"His intent was just simply to say, 'you've done nothing' and that's what it showed," Siano said. "So (if) thatís what it takes, itís a shame."

Another parent Misti Schramme told The Dallas Morning News she trusts security measures in Celina and thinks her child's school is safe: "You canít live in fear all the time."

School safety expert Ken Trump told NBC News on Friday that he encourages parents to "ask probing questions" about their child's school security and emergency prep.

But he advises: "Donít go off the deep end to be overly dramatic." Instead, Trump recommended that parents choose avenues like scheduling an appointment with the principal, attending safety or crisis team meetings at the school, or going to the school's PTA.

In the last few decades, Americans have witnessed a number of high-profile school shootings, including the 2007 attack at Virginia Tech and the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado.

On Thursday, an armed student entered a Taft, Calif. high school and wounded a 16-year-old teen. A teacher and campus supervisor persuaded the shooter to drop the gun.

The Texan could have demonstrated his point regarding school security without scaring everyone there. He could have simply handed each "target" a note explaining the scenario and his reason behind the exercise. Then he could have sat down with school officials and addressed his concerns. To claim that he had a gun and create the panic he did was very poor judgement.